May 2019 Briefing – HIV & AIDS

Jun 3, 2019

Here are what the editors at HealthDay consider to be the most important developments in HIV & AIDS for May 2019. This roundup includes the latest research news from journal articles, as well as the FDA approvals and regulatory changes that are the most likely to affect clinical practice.

Stepped Tx for Alcohol Use Disorder Studied in HIV Patients

THURSDAY, May 30, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Integrated stepped alcohol treatment (ISAT) reduces alcohol consumption in patients with HIV and a known drinking problem, according to a study published online May 17 in The Lancet HIV.

THURSDAY, May 30, 2019 (HealthDay News) — High costs are associated with physician turnover and reduced clinical hours attributed to burnout, according to a study published online May 28 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Reading clinical notes can help patients to understand why medications are prescribed and improves medication adherence for some patients, according to a brief research report published online May 28 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) — The global burden of serious health-related suffering is set to increase 47 percent by 2060, according to a study published online May 22 in The Lancet Global Health.

WEDNESDAY, May 22, 2019 (HealthDay News) — A considerable proportion of women with HIV have a high probability of viremia above 200 copies/mL, according to a study published online May 17 in JAMA Network Open.

TUESDAY, May 21, 2019 (HealthDay News) — U.S. health care organizations lost nearly $454 million due to clinical drug diversion in 2018, according to the 2019 Drug Diversion Digest, released by Protenus Inc.

FRIDAY, May 17, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Prices paid to hospitals for privately insured patients in 2017 averaged 241 percent of what Medicare would have paid, with wide variation in prices among states, according to a report published by the RAND Corporation.

FRIDAY, May 17, 2019 (HealthDay News) — More than 50,000 lives could be saved if all hospitals had an avoidable death rate equivalent to “A” grade hospitals, according to an updated report prepared for The Leapfrog Institute.

THURSDAY, May 16, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Guidelines have been updated for screening and treatment for tuberculosis (TB) infection among health care personnel, according to research published in the May 17 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

MONDAY, May 13, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Patients find note reading important for their health management and are rarely troubled by what they read, according to a study published in the May issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

MONDAY, May 13, 2019 (HealthDay News) — For internal medicine (IM) residents, prior training is associated with higher levels of knowledge, comfort, and prescribing behaviors for preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV, according to a study published online April 24 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

FRIDAY, May 10, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Health professionals are generally supportive of medicinal cannabis use but report a lack of knowledge about its use, according to a review published online May 6 in PLOS ONE.

FRIDAY, May 10, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Physicians are aware of patients’ difficulty with affording medical care and consider out-of-pocket costs in their decision making, according to an article published in a supplement to the May 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

THURSDAY, May 9, 2019 (HealthDay News) — A generic version of the HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drug Truvada will be available in the United States by September 2020, a year earlier than expected, according to Gilead Sciences.

THURSDAY, May 9, 2019 (HealthDay News) — If the incidence rates were the same for black women as for white women, an estimated 93 percent of incident HIV infections among black women would not have occurred in 2016, according to research published in the May 10 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

THURSDAY, May 9, 2019 (HealthDay News) — In 2018, the percentage of U.S. individuals who were uninsured was not significantly different from the numbers in 2017, although uninsurance increased among adults aged 45 to 64 years, according to a report published online May 9 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

WEDNESDAY, May 8, 2019 (HealthDay News) — In response to public demands for action to control drug costs, the top U.S. health official says TV advertisements for prescription drugs will soon have to include prices.

WEDNESDAY, May 8, 2019 (HealthDay News) — In 2015 to 2016, 45.8 percent of the U.S. population used prescription drugs within the past 30 days, according to a May data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

TUESDAY, May 7, 2019 (HealthDay News) — The average price for single-source brand-name drugs is higher in the United States than in other countries, indicating that external reference pricing could reduce costs, according to a study published in the May issue of Health Affairs.

FRIDAY, May 3, 2019 (HealthDay News) — In HIV serodifferent gay couples, the within-couple rate of HIV transmission through condomless anal sex is zero when the HIV-positive partner is taking suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to a study published online May 2 in The Lancet.

FRIDAY, May 3, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Medical financial hardship affects more than half of adults in the United States, according to a study published online May 1 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.